Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, on Saturday alleged that the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is being compromised from within the state machinery.
Speaking in Siliguri, Adhikari claimed the foundation of the voter list itself was under threat. “The EC depends on the state machinery, which is indulged in fraud,” he said. According to him, the manipulation is not incidental but coordinated.
“The state machinery is trying to include the names of Bangladeshi infiltrators in the voter list,” he alleged.
He accused senior officials of dialing district election officers, electoral registration officers and assistant electoral registration officers to ensure that “certain names remain on the voter rolls in a wrong manner.”
These, he said, “included dead voters, duplicate voters, fake voters and Bangladeshi infiltrators.”
Adhikari questioned why the Election Commission hadn’t acted faster. The EC, now attempting to assert control, has appointed retired IAS officer Subrata Gupta as Special Roll Observer and deployed 12 IAS officers as Electoral Roll Observers across the state.
He said the BJP has fielded the highest number of booth-level agents to counter any attempt to tamper with the revision process.
Earlier in Siliguri, Adhikari visited cricketer Richa Ghosh and congratulated her for her performance in the ICC Women’s World Cup 2025.
Calling her a “true daughter of West Bengal,” he pointed to her achievements across formats, including the U-19 World Cup, the WPL and now the senior World Cup.
In Cooch Behar’s Changrabandha, however, the day turned confrontational. Police stopped the BJP from erecting a stage for Adhikari’s rally on the highway, citing Calcutta high court guidelines on obstruction of traffic.
The rally is part of the BJP’s statewide ‘Parivartan Yatra’ ahead of the 2026 assembly elections. Adhikari said the public meeting would go ahead within the court’s conditions and without blocking the road.
BJP workers accused the police of acting out of political pressure. “The administration is acting in a vindictive manner. Despite the high court having already given a nod to the BJP to hold the rally, we are facing difficulty... We will move the court,” a district leader said.